Hi Eric and Walt, It is very nice to have such knowledgeable people on the list, thanks I appreciated your explanations. With regards to the high prices for items you can tell, the mean, rude ones think they have a goldmine and when you tell them the truth they think you are trying to cheat them. I wrote to a guy who was selling two Golden & Hughes cylinders for $1500, he was nice and said an antique dealer appraised them and thanked me. Greed blinds and people get angry, you can tell they really believe what they are writing.Steve> > Is it possible that these folks REALLY believe their descriptions? Perhaps> it is some kind of gold-fever euphoria gone haywire. I just can't (or> perhaps don't want to) believe that the such things are egregious fraud in> hopes of getting that spare $50,000 out of the pocket of a passer-by.> > Weird.... From [email protected] Sat Dec 2 20:04:13 2006 From: [email protected] (Andrew Baron) Date: Sun Dec 24 13:12:06 2006 Subject: [Phono-L] Glass recording discs and home recording systems In-Reply-To: <000e01c7167d$53d2de80$47e6f...@esjqacchoqgqch> References: <011101c71671$00fd3c20$0200a...@daddell> <000e01c7167d$53d2de80$47e6f...@esjqacchoqgqch> Message-ID: <[email protected]>
I have a bunch of the acetate-surfaced 12" glass recording discs, NOS, still in their original wood crate, ca. WWII. They're interesting in that you can hold one up to the sun or other strong illumination and see right through the disc. The light shining through the acetate layers and glass appears as a deep, dark blue- gray. The recording surfaces are a perfect mirror-- I'd say smoother than the Wilcox-Gay or other home or commercial recording discs or acetate transcriptions I've seen. A couple of these have the acetate unbonded in great flakes, revealing the clear(er) glass core, but most are perfect. Some day I'll see how well they record on the Recordio, in relation to their aluminum-cored brethren. Home recording has interested me, in its various evolutions from Edison cylinders to the commercially unsuccessful RCA Victor pre- grooved discs of the early thirties to the more successful acetate coated disc systems of the late thirties to early fifties. I've accumulated all the apparatus to record on these various systems; machines, cutting styli, blanks, etc. Have done some experimentation with the cylinders and the acetates. I've played around a bit with the wire recorders (what a pain that system was! -- Very crude arrangement of friction bands and spring tension to regulate speed, etc.), but haven't yet attempted recording on the pre-grooved Victor system of 1930-31. Those blanks and cutting & playback needles are a bit harder to find. I also need to do a full electronic restoration on the RE-57 before I can get my feet wet on that system, but it intrigues me nonetheless. Are there any on this list who have experimented with these systems? Andy Baron On Dec 2, 2006, at 6:49 PM, estott wrote: > ----- Original Message ----- From: "Walt Sommers" > <[email protected]> > To: "'Antique Phonograph List'" <[email protected]> > Sent: Saturday, December 02, 2006 7:21 PM > Subject: RE: [Phono-L] Glass record > > Sorry if I'm wrong, but it sounds like you might not be aware that > recording and transcription discs were made on glass cores during > the war, to save on aluminium. Given an acetate coating the glass > blanks functioned just as well as the metal cored ones but they > were heavier, thicker, and of course they broke. > > Now, in reality the government had plenty of aluminum in stock, but > attention to scrimping and saving was good for morale and kept > people's minds occupied. > > Eric Stott
